Devices for ebooks

Pocket PC (Hewlett Packard, $550) - a handheld device with Internet connection, Windows Media Player. See at Barnes and Noble.com (bn.com) There are links on Barnes and Noble to free ebooks to download and ebooks to purchase. Uses files created by Microsoft Reader.

Rocket ebook 1100 and 1500 - owned by RCA, these devices, the first in b&w and the second in color are not compatible with each other and only display books created for them. See them at Barnes&Noble.com.(http://bn.com) These devices are available at Circuit City and other electronics stores.

 

 

Formats of ebooks

HTML - can be read in any browser. Format used by many ebooks.

Text - text files can be downloaded and read by any word processor. Of course, there is little formatting.

Microsoft Reader (PC version only - Mac soon) - The giant is trying to capture the ebook market and its reader can be downloaded from the Microsoft web site (http://microsoft.com) or from Barnes and Noble.com (http://bn.com). Reader can be used on any pc computer or on some ebook devices including the Pocket PC they sell.

 Adobe Acrobat (PC or Mac) - Adobe would like to capture the market not only for computer reading but also any device that will display. They acquired the Glassbook ebook reader device and will convert that line to the Acrobat format in the future. You probably already have Acrobat Reader on your computer. If not, it can be downloaded almost anywhere or at Adobe (http://adobe.com)

Glassbook Reader (PC) - a downloadable free software package allowing books in their format to be read on a PC. Adobe has acquired this company and will obviously be transforming this to Acrobat format reading. You can download the free software from Barnes and Noble.com (http://bn.com).

Sources for ebooks

For Purchase (some free)

Barnes and Noble (http://bn.com)

Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com)

Mostly Free

Dot Lit (http://www.dotlit.com) - an arm of Microsoft alerting you to books available in the Microsoft Reader format. You can subscribe to receive a free mothly listing. And you can download free books here.

University of Virginia E-book Library - html books and Microsoft reader (http://etext.virginia.edu/ebooks/ebooklist.html)

Ken Mattern's Ebook Web - (http://esspc-ebooks.com)

The Online Books Page (http://digital.library/upenn.edu/books/index.html) is an index to thousands of books available from a wide variety of locations and downloadable.

Project Gutenberg (http://promo.net/pg/) - the original site of the first digital books, now containing thousands and thousands of titles in text format.

The Internet Public Library - (http://www.ipl.org) - has hundreds of books and manuscripts cataloged but not served out - that is, you can click on any of the resources and it links you to the original.